


Untitled

by phoebesmum



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-10
Updated: 2009-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:14:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebesmum/pseuds/phoebesmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan Rydell knows it's time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untitled

**Author's Note:**

> Written November 2007. A request fic, prompt 'a drabble where Dan Rydell has been secretly in love with Casey and finally decides to tell him how he feels'. This is five drabbles for the price of one.

A wise man once said, slip any of us the words _Fly at once! All is known!_ and nine out of ten would be halfway across the world, not a bag packed, no word of farewell, before even stopping to think.

Everyone has their secrets. Guilty ones, mostly.

Lately Natalie's taken to chirping _… secretly in love with Casey!_ everywhere she goes. Whenever he hears her Dan flinches, wondering what finally gave him away, before remembering she means Dana. Dana-loves-Casey is Natalie's latest obsession and, really, Dan should be relieved to see her so utterly and completely on the wrong track.

He freely admits (if only to himself, his only confidant) that it's unreasonable to feel hurt or jealous. And yet, he does. Both those things. He's thought of Casey as _his_ for so long now, it's hard to remember he's not, that, if anyone's, he was Lisa's. That's another story in itself. Even the sound of that woman's name provokes a surge of bile that Dan knows he should be ashamed of, but which he can't suppress. For ten years he watched and listened as she wasted what he would have killed to have. Is it any wonder he's bitter?

It'll be the same with Dana; they're racing down the highway to disaster, blind to all the warning signs. The only surprise is how fast and how spectacularly they crash and burn. Now, if ever, is Dan's chance to pick up the pieces, to be strong and supportive, to hope that _this_ time Casey will finally see what's been in front of him all these years. It's just bad luck that the timing sucks, that when it happens his own life is in tatters and it's all he can do to hold himself together, let alone shore up Casey's ego.

It goes like this, over and over, history repeating itself while life and fate surge and ebb all around them, through arguments and misunderstandings, loss and disaster. Throughout it all, Dan keeps his silence, hides his heart. Until one morning he wakes up and, for no reason at all – it's just an ordinary day – he realises he's had enough. Today's the day. Today he'll speak his mind. What's the worst … no. Don't even go there. He knows, only too well, what could happen; just what it is he stands to lose.

(What is he losing? Lies, pretence, illusions. Nothing. _Everything._)

He rehearses his lines, walking the streets, riding the subway, but when he opens the office door he blanks, forgetting them all. So he does the only thing he can think of: he strides across the room, grabs Casey by the shoulders, and kisses him – hard, hungry, greedy, like he really means it, like he's meant it for years. When he finally steps back Casey just blinks, grins slowly, and says, "Took you long enough, Rydell." And then he reciprocates.

Later, maybe, there'll be regret for the wasted years. Later. Right now, _regret_ is the last thing on Dan's mind.

***


End file.
